YOUTH'S BRILLIANT WIN IN BRITISH AMATEUR GOLF

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31092, 22 June 1966, Page 11

YOUTH'S BRILLIANT WIN IN BRITISH AMATEUR GOLF

LONDON, June 16. JgOBBY Cole, of whose existence I was totally unaware until a few days ago, has made it a truly great week for the golden youth of world golf. I have never met the lad, or watched his swing, for he emerged from the blue to win the British amateur championship at the age of 18. I didn't see his victory, for professional events kept me far from Carnoustie. But knowing the strength of the field, with names like Bonallack, Townsend and William Hyndman HI abounding, it was equivalent to an outsider winning the Derby. He will never be granted such odds again, for the simply staggering thing about his last-round victory was his scoring. Playing from the back-tees, in a fresh easterly wind, he proceeded like this: 444, 444, 435, 444, 444, 3 63 for the 16 holes needed to beat Ronie Shade by three and two in the final. That left him one under fours, and master of the course.

I’ve known Carnoustie in all its moods and even on a calm, perfect day that is great golf. To play it in an easterly, under pressure and with very little knowledge, of the course marks this young man as a player to watch.

There will be plenty of professionals at Carnoustie when the British Open is played there in two years’ time who would settle right now for reeling off 16 holes like that.

Cole’s win was achieved at exactly the same age—to the month, week and day—as that of Britain’s John Beharrell when he took the title in 1956. What isn’t a coincidence is that two such tenderfoot golfers should have won it at the age of 18 within the short span of 10 years. It supports my long-standing contention that, notwithstanding all the obvious improvements in equipment, the standards of golf are getting better and better all the time. Just as the fourminute mile is now considered a tardy time on the track, so the golfing barriers are cracking too.

It’s a sobering thought, when you are just a month away from your 50th birthday. It is also one which is going to bring me a deluge of protesting letters from those one-eyed veterans who continue to believe that the

lights went out when Bobby Jones retired. It’s happened before when I've taken up the cudgels on behalf of the modern young golfer and always the argument is the same. “What about Young Tom Morris,” they boom, “have you never studied your history?” Indeed I have, and deeply enough to explode a myth or two. On the face of it Young

Tom would have commanded all the front pages of the newspapers of the 1860 s—had they reported golf those days—and made a quick million if he had had a business manager like Arnie Palmer’s. He won the first of his four open championships at Prestwick when he was just 18. That was in 1868. He won it again in 1869, in 1870 and 1872. Three years later, a veteran of 25 years of age. he died. He must have been a great player, but the fact remains that in his last victory, when presumably he was at his peak, his score was 166 for the two rounds then played which averages 83 a round. What is more, the total entry that year was eight players! This means no disrespect to the remarkable Morris family, who provided golf with a foresight of the personality cult which has reached its height with Messrs Palmer, Nicklaus and Player. It is simply setting the record straight. Kids are simply developing earlier these days, they have better facilities, often

more ambitious parents to push them and—most of all —they are playing golf, it seems as soon as they leap out of the cradle. If you don’t believe me, consider the recent case of Master Joseph Dobson, of Enid, Oklahoma, U.S.A., who at the age of six years three months and one day became the youngest "ace" golfer in history by holing in one at the 155-yard fourth at the Meadowlark Municipal Golf Course, Enid. The miracle is not that his shot went in the hole but that he was playing golf in the first place. Similarly Miss Julie Wetch, of Montana, U.S.A., became the youngest woman to achieve the feat, when two years ago she holed-in-one at the age of 10 years 14 weeks four days. None of which appears to have much connexion, at first glance, with Bobby Cole's remarkable victory last week in the British Amateur Championship. Indeed it has. Master Dobson, for example, will be a veteran by the time he is 18 and It is a fact that we greybeards would be well advised not to forget.